


Through the Years

by Eternal_Johnlock



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Vamp!lock, Vampire Sherlock, soulmate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 04:01:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12073110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eternal_Johnlock/pseuds/Eternal_Johnlock
Summary: All the times Sherlock met John throughout his long life.





	Through the Years

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings readers,
> 
> I have had the worst writers block recently and haven't been able to work on anything. So i just opened a word document and wrote this with very little editing. Vampires are one of my favorite topics and Johnlock is another favorite topic, why not? If you know my Instagram account, eternaljohnlock, you know i adore vamp!lock to no end.  
> Anyway, i will not be editing this, if you see any grammar errors feel free not to point them out to me. No, this isn't amazing, i get that.  
> i am still going to finish Northern Prince, but i just can't seem to write it right now.  
> Hope you like it.  
> comments are always welcome

The first time Sherlock met him was in 1603, when he was a mere forty-six years old.

Sherlock was born like this, the offspring of two high-born purebloods from powerful clans. Contrary to popular mythology, their kind did age, but slowly; barely changing throughout a century.

At forty-six, Sherlock was little more than a child, with thin, spindly limbs and a wild mess of inky curls. He had accompanied his brother to the monastery in the mountains that surrounded their clan’s ancestral home in the untamed mountains of Scotland.

Sherlock hated carriage rides, they left him sore and irritable, but he endured it on this day because this was the day of a very ancient rite of passage in his family. His older brother Mycroft, now of age at one-hundred years old, it was his first time being allowed to select new food sources from among the orphans brought up in the mountain top monastery.

Sherlock had been a little taken aback by the sight that met them as they arrived. Three dozen boys had been neatly aligned on the stone steps, hand clasped behind their backs, heads bowed. He wondered what lies they had been fed about what fate awaited those chosen. Not a family, certainly, for all the world new the Holmes clan was an old family of nobles, no orphan boy could ever hope to be taken in by them; a servant’s life then.

Mycroft was much taller than Sherlock, towering over his baby brother, imperious and commanding. Sherlock watched with growing fascination as Mycroft asked the priest which boys he felt were best suited to a life of _draining labor_. How clever.

The priest began to pull boy out of the lines. A tall boy with bright red hair, a thick boy covered head to foot in freckles, and a boy with a deep olive complexion. They all appeared strong and healthy.

They three boys were ushered into a waiting carriage and as Mycroft thanked the priest, Sherlock turned to climb back into his own carriage. He stalled, however, when her heard the aging holy man say that there was one more ward he believed would serve them well if they would agree to give him a chance.

Mycroft sighed and benevolently agreed to see the boy.

The priest held out a hand and gestured someone forward from the ranks. Two older-looking boys parted to allow another much smaller boy through. He was short with a stronger build than some of the others, with sandy hair and deep blue eyes. He stood before Mycroft with is chin raised, as if refusing to be judged by him.

Mycroft waved a dismissive hand and agreed to take the boy. As he passed by Sherlock on his way to join the other in the carriage, his eyes met Sherlock's and the world stilled around them. For one long moment there was only the two of them, he smelled delicious; Sherlock's mouth began to water, he was suddenly very eager to get home.

That evening the boy were brought before Sherlock's parents, heads of the household as they were, and presented. Sherlock felt a stab of something primal when his own uncle had stepped forward and jerked the blond boy’s chin up to see his face. He could feel the confusion and distress wafting off all four of the orphans, but the littlest seemed to be fighting hard to clamp down on his rising fear; he could sense the danger all around him where he stood in a hall full to bursting with thirsting vampires.

As his uncle forced the blond boy’s head back and dove for his neck, Sherlock had lunged forward, snapping his jaw and snarling viciously, tearing the boy away from his uncle and shielding him with his body. He did not understand what had come over him, but everything in him screamed that this boy must be protected at all costs.

Sherlock, with his unique upbringing and deeply pragmatic nature, had never put much stock in the idea of a soulmate; a fanciful idea his kind seemed to harp on about endlessly. But though he did not yet understand that the small boy behind him harbored the soul to whom his own soul was irrevocably bound, he experienced an unimaginable pain when the boy was wrenched from him and torn to pieces before his eyes.

 

Sherlock became aware of mortality on that day. He became aware of the days and years that stretched out before him as long as eternity, and he resented it. he had never even known that child’s name, yet he mourned for him. His mother, his kind and doting mother, had worn the most bizarre expression when Sherlock told her of the sadness he felt at the death of that fair haired boy. She explained to him that he may have briefly known his missing half, and held him as he cried.

The depth of the mourning he’d felt frightened Sherlock, it paralyzed him and he swore to be done with it, nothing this painful could be worth the trouble, surely. No more talk of soulmates, ever.

Seventy years passed in a blur of endless sameness. Sherlock was walking along the dock of the seaport when he felt something pull violently behind his heart with a force that stole his breath. A wind off the sea carried a scent to him that set his blood on fire. Frantically he followed it, shoving people aside and even leaping over a fruit cart (that would make the rounds in the pubs, without a doubt), until he reached the doors of a small inn nestled upon a craggy cliff.

He forced himself to be still for a just a moment before pulling the doors open and stepping into the parlor. The scent was stronger in here, almost overpowering, his knees began to shake. He tried to breathe, to calm himself, but every inhale brings on another wave of that lovely scent. He makes his way up the stairs to a glass paneled door from beyond which drifts the sharp stink of whiskey.

Sherlock steels himself and opens the door. There, reclined in an armchair by the window is a man with sandy hair, his deep blue eyes fixed on the ocean beyond the cliff wall. Sherlock feels every inch of his slender frame begin to tremble. Its him, he’s here. The weight in Sherlock's heart that he had become so accustomed to lifts a little and he can breathe right again for the first time in seventy years.

The man looks over at him and smiles a bit, raising his glass in greeting. Sherlock approaches and asks if he may join him, the man says yes— his voice is music. Sitting opposite him, Sherlock feels as though the entire hateful world has come into alignment.

He asks the man his name and learns he is called John, a good, strong name Sherlock thinks. He asks him where he is from and what he is doing in this old fishing village. The man explains that he is recently back on land after four years as a navy medic and simply did not wish to return to his family’s home in Edinburgh yet. Sherlock can read the tension in his eyes as he says this and his mind supplies that there is someone there, likely John's father or a father figure, that he does not get on with.

Not wanting to let this man out of his sight ever again, Sherlock finds himself speaking without meaning to, suggesting that John come live on his private estate as a live-in physician form himself and his staff. John laughs at first, but soon shrugs his shoulders and asks idly what he has to lose. Sherlock is relived.

They share a train car and a coach from that rocky village to Sherlock's lush estate. They sit shoulder to shoulder, and John can seem to look at him. Sherlock bites hard on the inside of his mouth and digs his n ails into his palms to keep from crossing the cabin, pressing John back into the seat, and sinking his fangs into his neck.

This raging desire Sherlock feels for John does not dissipate as the weeks go by and autumn turns to winter. He longs to be near him, but fears what he may do. They grow closer, and often spend evenings together in front of the fire saying not needing to say a word. Sherlock wants to believe he truly has seen John watching him longingly from across the room, that the little touches they share are intentional, but he refuses to allow himself the indulgence.

John was not like him, he was human, and in the human world men were not permitted to love other men. But why should that matter? Damn the rest of the world, they could live out their days here, together until the sky fell. He would make John like him, and they would be together always. He could not let John slip away again.

That night he drifted silently through the cold halls and crossed John's threshold. John did not stir as Sherlock's presence chilled the air in the bed chamber. He stepped to the bed and sat beside the sleeping doctor, sliding a hand gently under his head to expose his neck. He pressed his nose to John sleep-warmed skin and inhaled. A shiver raced through him and he felt his mouth fill with venom that burned hi tongue.

He parted his lips and his venom dripped onto John's skin. John jerked as the acid burned his neck. Though Sherlock tried to keep John's mind quiet, the smaller man fought against his hold. Even in sleep he seemed to know Sherlock was the one in who’s arms he lay and he sighed his name as he twisted him the sheets.

Sherlock held him still and positioned his fangs against the softest point of John's throat, he could feel his love’s pulse racing beneath his tongue. He silently pleaded for John to bear with him, to let him do what must be done for the two of them to be one. But as he readied himself to bite down, something stayed him. With a tremendous effort he forced himself back from John, biting down hard on his lip until he tasted his own blood.

He couldn’t, it wasn’t right. He couldn’t take John's humanity from him, not like this. he would stay with John until the end, and then follow him into oblivion, but he would not take his life from him. He had John now, he would not be parted from him ever again, so this was not necessary.

John's voice finds his ears in that dark room, a soft, distraught whimper. Sherlock hushes him, strokes his beautiful face, reveling in this closeness for the first and last time. He whispers to John of his love and devotion, and how they will never be without each other. This seems to soothe John and he falls back to sleep; he will not remember this in the morning.

Three weeks later John comes to Sherlock with news of his recall to service. Sherlock pleads with him to let his brother take care of it for him, to stay here with Sherlock and not return to war. John is furious, he doesn’t understand how Sherlock can be so selfish. He insists it is an honor to serve and refuses to speak to Sherlock again until the morning when he leaves, when he instructs him to have his belongings delivered to his family’s house in Edinburgh.

He leaves, and Sherlock feels empty.

Sherlock knows it’s happened before the news arrives.

He woke in the wee hours, drenched in sweat, pain ripping through his chest. He cried out in anguish.

He waits for thirty-five hours before the conformation is brought to him by way of one of Mycroft’s men, along with a letter that John had left at base before leaving across the sea.

When the man has left, Sherlock dismisses his staff for the day and retreats upstairs. Winter rain lashes the window panes and thunder cracks overhead as the sky flashes. Sherlock doesn’t hear any of it. He sits in his chair by the fire and stares at the unopened letter in his shaking hands. He carefully unfolds the parchment and is met with horrible words in a simple hand. It would have been easier to have read words of anger and resentment from John, but a remorseful apology about how deeply the doctor had loved Sherlock and regretted that they could not be together; not in this life.

Sherlock paced back and forth across the room, rage and grief waring in him until finally his legs gave out. He collapsed to his knees and screamed, tearing at his skin, until his lungs could take no more.

 

Sixty-three years would pass before Sherlock would hear mention of his John again. He has spent the last few decades moving from place to place in France, he doesn’t know why, he just feels like he should be here.

He sees the obituary in the paper on morning and curses himself, the world, and everyone in it; he had not found him in time. He had spent every moment since that night in John's room wishing he had sunk his teeth into John and made him his own, but he had been weak.

In the paper the little passage about his wonderful John mentioned a family, a wife and three children. He goes to them, claiming to be an old friend of John's. The oldest is a boy of eight or nine years old, and Sherlock feels a sharp pain in his ribs at how like his father the boy looks, with sandy hair and deep blue eyes.

He offers to arrange a living situation for the little family with little money and no one to support them. He finds them a little house in the countryside and pays their every expense until they last of John's great, great, great, grandchildren die.

 

Sherlock loses track of time after that, decades blur together and the world evolves around him, blooming into a new era unlike anything he has seen before. But he no longer cares.

With the new century came new ways of escaping the life he no longer wanted. He burned wholes in his veins and wiled away his endless days trying to ignore the pain he carried with him. Eventually his brother introduced him to a man names Lestrade and Sherlock found something almost worth living for, something that held his attention at the very least.

Sherlock Holmes, a centuries old vampire, became a detective and threw himself body and withered soul into the work. On just another day, he found himself in the lab at Bart’s, one of his favorite places because he could let his mind run free within these walls and there was always something to keep his focus away from more painful avenues.

When the lab door opened the first thing Sherlock smell was mike Stamford, the scent of strong coffee and laundry detergent. But behind that came a scent that chilled him to his core, a scent he was beginning fear he’d never smell again. John…

Sherlock could have cried when John, now John Watson, stepped back into his life. His fair hair was cropped short, and he walked with a limp.

_Oh, John, what’s happened to you?_

His mind paints the picture for him in seconds.

He has the opportunity to share a flat with his John, and for a moment he considers declining. Losing this man had nearly killed him and he honestly doesn’t know if he could survive it again. But that pull behind his heart drags him bodily into John Watson’s path, and he doesn’t want tight it.

Months pass together and Sherlock is truly happy for the first time in his life. He and John take on the world together and its bliss. He falls deeper for John with every passing hour, and he finds he doesn’t mind. He will burn London to the ground to keep his John happy and safe, he would die for him. And soon he must. He steps off the edge of Bart’s with no regrets. Even if the fall could have killed him, he wouldn’t have minded.

Hearing John's broken voice as he searched for his best friend’s pulse made Sherlock's heart ache. He doesn’t want to leave John, but he will do whatever it takes to keep him safe; this man must be protected. So he leaves London and a heart broken John behind to hunt down monsters more evil than any of his own kind.

When he returns home he has decided to tell John everything, the entre truth about who he is and what John means to him. He did not anticipate the woman sitting across from John in that restaurant. He retreats, he supports them from the background— Mary and his John— because more than anything he wants John to be happy. So he swallowed his longing and bit his tongue, he would not interfere.

He remained in the background, quietly repenting for all the hurt he had caused his love. He is there through the reveal of Mary dark past, and John is there for him when his wife puts a bullet in Sherlock's chest. John remains by his side while he recovers. That shot would have killed someone more human, without a doubt. Sherlock is there through the birth of little Rosie and Mary’s sudden death.

He was overjoyed when John asked to move back into Baker Street for a while, but he kept it to himself. He helped with Rosie and they went on cases, everything was alright again.

It happened on a balmy summer evening. Sherlock had broken away from the search party at the docks and John had obediently followed. The shot rang through the warehouse and John hit the cement floor, blood pulsing through the hole in his chest. Sherlock tried to stop the bleeding, he did, but his phone had no signal in this place and John was slipping away.

He would not lose his dear love again, he would not.

He wrenched John's head back and without a second thought he sunk his dripping fangs into John's throat. John's body jerk as venom began to spread through his weakened body. Sherlock took his hand and lifted him into his arms, begging him to hold on.

They are taken to a secure medical facility by Mycroft’s instructions, where John spent the following five days in agony. He writhed in his bed, damp with sweat, barely conscious, and fighting back cries. Sherlock never left his side. He hopes John won’t hate him for this, he hopes he will understand.

It finally ends in the middle of the night, and John's transition is complete. Sherlock could sense the shift in the air as John came to waking and took in the world through his new senses.

Sherlock is there, gentle hands on John's brow, apologizing for what he’s done to him. John quiets him with a hand on his chest and whispers that he remembers, it remembers it all, every moment spent with Sherlock.

Sherlock kisses him deeply, at long last.

John pulls him close, strength restored in spades, and tells a trembling Sherlock how much he loves him. At last.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I look forward to your comments.


End file.
